Over The Past Fifteen Years A Powerfully Charged Drama Has Essay Example For Students

Over The Past Fifteen Years A Powerfully Charged Drama Has Essay unfolded in New Yorks Broadway venues and spread to the opera housesand ballet productions of major cities across the country. Itscharacters include angry college students, aging rock stars,flamboyant B-movie queens, society matrons, and sophisticated fashiondesigners. You cant buy tickets for this production, but you mightcatch a glimpse of it while driving in Bethesda on particular Saturdayafternoons. If youre lucky, Compassion Over Killing (COK), an animalrights civil disobedience group, will be picketing Millers Furs,their enemy in the fight against fur. These impassioned activists seethe fur trade as nothing less than wholesale, commercialized murder,and will go to great lengths to get their point across. Suchenthusiasm may do them in, as COKs often divisive rhetoric and tacitendorsement of vandalism threaten to alienate the very people it needsto reach in order to be successful. The animal rights idealogy crystallized with the publicationof philosophy professors exploration of the way humans use and abuseother animals. Animal Liberation argued that animals have an intrinsicworth in themselves and deserve to exist on their own terms, not justas means to human ends. By 1985, ten years after Peter Singerswatershed treatise was first published, dozens of animal rights groupshad sprung up and were starting to savor their first successes. In1994 Paul Shapiro, then a student at Georgetown Day School, didntfeel these non-profits were agitating aggressively enough for thecause. He founded Compassion Over Killing to mobilize animal rightsactivists in the Washington metropolitan area and throw animalexploiters out of business. Since then, COK has expanded to over 300members with chapters across the country, including one at AmericanUniversity, which formed in the fall of 1996. COK organizes protestsas a primary activity of the group, although some chapters may chooseto expand into other areas if they wish. COKs focus on direct-action protests and demonstrations isjust one way that the animal rights movement has mobilized to end thefur trade. The larger animal rights organizations have conductedattention grabbing media blitzes with the help of stars like PaulMcCartney, Melissa Etheridge, Rikki Lake, Naomi Campbell and ChristyTurlington. Lobbying efforts by animal advocacy groups have resultedin trapping restrictions in numerous states and an end to federal furindustry subsidies. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)has persuaded several fashion designers including Calvin Klein andDonna Karan to stop using fur in their clothing lines. In addition,anti-fur concerts, videos, compact discs, t-shirts, drag revues andaward ceremonies have been used by animal rights groups to advancetheir cause. Each side of the conflict over fur coats has an entirelydifferent way of conceptualizing and talking about the issue. Animalrights groups bluntly describe fur as deadanimal parts andemphasize that animals are killed to produce a fur garment. Thoseinvolved in the fur industry consistently use agricultural metaphorsand talk of a yearly crop of fur that must be harvested. MannyMiller, the owner of Millers Furs, refused to describe his businessin terms of the individual animals; I dont sell animals. I sellfinished products. I sell fur coats. These linguistic differencesextend to the manner in which both sides frame the debate over fur. COK refers to the industry in criminal terms; fur is directly equatedwith murder and those involved in the industry are labeled killers. Industry groups like the Fur Information Council of America (FICA)always describes fur garments as objects and clothing; it is theultimate cold weather fabric that is your fashion choice.On Saturday, April 12th, Compassion Over Killing demonstratedoutside the White House, protesting the Clinton administrationsopposition to a European Community ban on the importation of fur coatsmade from animals caught in the wild. In addition, the demonstrationcalled for the release of several Animal Liberation Front (ALF)members imprisoned for vandalizing property and liberating animalsfrom research labs and factory farms. Several dozen high school andcollege students turned out for the event, but the protest attracted ahandful of thirtysomethings and an elderly woman as well. Most of theyoung people there seemed to dress in a similar style; baggy pants,piercings and t-shirts advertising obscure hard-core rock bandsadorned most of the activists. The organizers of the protest providedmore than enoug h signs for everyone to carry. Each sign had a sloganstenciled on the cardboard in boxy black letters, including Abolishthe Fur Trade, Fur is Murder, Stop Promoting Vanity and Death,and Fur is Dead- Get It In Your Head. Some of the signs displayedgraphic photographs of skinned animal carcasses. In contrast to thedramatic messages they carried, most of the activists were subdued asthey slowly trudged in a circle. In The Play Othello, The Character Of Othello Has Certain Traits Which EssayThe effect was very much like that of an angry mob; tension andvitriolic energy filled the air. This atmosphere may release pent upemotion, and discourage people from buying fur in the short term,although in the long term it runs the risk of damaging the animalrights cause. A recent survey revealed that an overwhelming majorityof Americans strongly disapprove of protesting fur coats in aharassing manner. Animal advocates certainly dont need their tacticscompared to radical pro-life groups that make abortion clinicswarzones. As all the activity unfolded outside their door Millers Furstaped a small sign to their window that read Medical Research SavesLives. This seemed off-topic at first glance, but after visiting theFICA web site and reading other pro-fur literature, it was apparentthat the sign was part of a pattern. The fur industry initiallyignored criticism from animal rights groups and relied on theirproducts glamorous image to state their case. As the column inchesdevoted to the animal rights movements allegations of cruelty beganto accumulate and sales began to drop; the industrys strategyshifted. Fur companies began to try to draw attention away fromthemselves by pointing out the most controversial parts of the animalrights agenda to the mainstream society. Arguably the animal rightsissue with the least amount of public support is medical animaltesting. Although this topic divides the animal rights community, manyof the movements leaders favor total abolition of any testing onanimals. The fur ind ustry is only too happy to point this out toanyone wholl listen. Compassion Over Killing and other animal rights groups areactively trying to change the social rules that prevail in thiscountry. While in the short term they may not be advocating a ban onfur coats, COKs protests are aimed at making it socially unacceptableto wear fur. This effort has shown signs of succeeding, as fur saleshave fallen almost 50% below their peak volume in 1987. However, theyhave begun to creep upwards again in recent quarters. As with everysocial movement, animal advocacy groups need to pause and reevaluatetheir public relations strategies. Perhaps its time for organizationslike Compassion Over Killing to cut back on their use of emotionallycharged phrases and tacit endorsement of felonious acts a la ALF. Without considering these issues, COK runs the risk of marginalizingthe group and losing its battle against fur. Works CitedCowit, Steve. Hollywood Hypocrites. Fur Age 04/06/97 11:35:32. Feitelberg, Rosemary. Surge in Luxe Business, Designer ParticipationBode Well for Fur Week. Womens Wear Daily 14 May 1996: 1+. Freak Show Protest Falls on Deaf Ears. Fur Agehttp://www.furs.com/FUR/FurAge76.html 04/06/97 11:41:16. Fur Information Council of America. Fur, Your Fashion Choice.Motavalli, Jim. Our Agony Over Animals. E Magazine Oct 1995: 28-37. People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Annual Report. 1994. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The PETA Guide toAnimals and the Clothing Trade.Responsive Management. Americans Attitudes Toward Animal Welfare,Animal Rights and Use of Animals.Riechmann, Deb. A Harvest of Fox Fur And Anger. Washington Post 5Jan 1995: M2. Shapiro, Paul. An Interview With the Owner of Millers Furs. TheAbolitionist Summer 1996: 3-4. Shapiro, Paul. Personal Communication. Bethesda, MD. 5 April 1997. Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics For Our Treatment ofAnimals New York: Avon, 1975. Stern, Jared Paul. Are You Fur Real? Fashion Reporter June/July1996: 5-6.