Our Mother Organization writes:
New York Animal Rights Alliance America August 14, 2011
Our organization, the NY-ARAA, has a two-fold mission. We ARE animal rights activists (ARAs) after all. This is what we do! All of our experience and knowledge is now concentrated on the campaign of our dogs and cats in the tragedy of our American pound system. I have been extremely gratified for our first ye
ar to bring so many people in the rescue arena into the animal rights activism arena - it has been exciting in this regard indeed. I have gotten scores of people for the first time stand outside with a sign and protest. We had our first National Protest Against Kill Pounds with about 10-15 shelters participating and now we are looking at our second National Protest only 14 short weeks from now with the hopes that we will have a shelter in every state in the union. The awareness that could be drawn to a National Protest with everyone wearing red on the same day in front of their pound or shelter will be historical indeed because, of course, this has never been done before. Secondly, with my particular experience as a paralegal and community activist/politician, I have been leading the way for our group to bring legal action against the NY-Animal Care and Control (NY-ACC) and the ASPCA. Two separate important legal briefs are pending to be filed with affidavits of scores of documentations of abuse, negligence and incompetence regarding the lack of care of our precious dogs and cats. This lawsuit will tie in nicely with the one already having been before the court with Stray from the Heart that stated that the allegations brought before the court were too broad; we seek to remedy this with extremely specific and numerous affidavits and, in fact, the avalanche of evidence pours in daily. Although it seems dismal at the moment as the Mayor and City Council (truly our primary target) begin to "legislate" their victory in the appeal of having to build shelters in Queens and the Bronx, we still go forward with just as much ferocity. After all, laws can easily be repealed if the elected officials are changed out and that is squarely where ARAs for this movement find themselves now - politically involved. We MUST engage our elected officials on the NY City Council and investigate their voting records and even then begin to seek out new candidates who might have the ability to unseat the enemies of a True No-Kill shelter system in the city of NY. We already have Mr. Micah Kellner who has brilliantly authored and sponsored CAARA for which we must diligently advocate. Unfortunately for the most part, the City Council in NY cowtows to the whims and wishes of Speaker Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg lest they not get their sidewalks done in the far corners of their boroughs. We must absolutely make it clear that we will not re-elect the incumbent that voted to legislate the absolution of shelters in Queens and the Bronx. And we MUST do that in numbers. Pending are two opportunities that are rare indeed that we can come together to show the city of NY, the state of NY, and the entire country and the world that we will no longer tolerate the slaughter of our innocent dogs and cats; that we demand free and low-cost spay neuter like it has never been available before; that when dogs and cats enter into the shelter system here in NY and everywhere that they be afforded superior veterinary care; that no animal is killed regardless of behavior unless terminally ill and therefore euthanized. The first opportunity is September 17, A Candlelight Vigil for Louie, a 10-month-old Boxer Boy Puppy that was brutally killed at the hands of the NY-ACC even as a rescue hold was in place. This vigil will also allow us to mourn the loss of so many others. This vigil will be held outside of Mayor Bloomberg's brownstone on 79th Street in NYC. The second opportunity in a mere 14 weeks will be our National Protest Against Kill Pounds on November 12 in front of the Queens "Receiving Center" - where we seek to rally the people of particularly Queens to protest the NYC appeal to build a shelter there and now this "legislation" to cement their victory. I have a vision that everyone everywhere will come together and wear red and hold a sign that states WE ARE ONE under the NY-ARAA group and demand that the killing of our precious furbabies stops immediately. But that vision will never come true unless we as a movement are willing to come together. I can only do so much with the 14 hours per day I have as one person with my small team and almost nonexistent budget and therefore I need help. I need help to contact people from every corner in America because we know that every hour of every day approximately 800 dogs and cats are killed in this American tragedy that is the pound system. The complicated and horrendous mess that the city of NY created under the auspices of the Department of Health intertwining the care of dogs and cats with people is an obvious pure bumbling conflict of interest. But this incompetent pathetic mess will take a complete change of leadership to undo. There is so much more that can be done including that the governance of the pound system in NY should be completely taken out of the hands of the City of NY and placed under state jurisdiction and that type of repeal will need to be done in Albany. We have friends there such as Amy Paulin, Frank Tedesco and Harvey Weisenberg to name a few to whom we must reach out and support. Meanwhile our elected officials must know how we feel. Letters, emails, petitions, and phone calls will not cut it folks. We need to show them that we are large in numbers but are we? I believe there are so many more people that we can add to our ranks to those of the compassionate but we must go out into the public realm and recruit those individuals to our movement. Short of this, we will have 100, 200 or 300 people show up to protests and demonstrations and the protests will be relegated to page five of the Daily News if we are lucky. We have already seen many politicians actually currying favor to many interest groups that are anti-animal and other groups that vie for tight budget monies for themselves. I believe that if we really do our jobs, we will find those compassionate people, off of Facebook, in our classrooms, in our hallways at work, in our families and civic associations, we can find people who will stand with us and say, it is not right to kill them, it is worth our tax dollars to end this chapter of the American tragedy that is the pound system today. As we wind down our summer and ready ourselves for the school year and in between all of the puppies and kittens we rescue, let's make some time here at this most crucial juncture of awareness to recruit people to the movement that will end the slaughter of our cats and dogs and have the healing, the compassion and the actual rescue of dogs and cats begin. We are the New York Animal Rights Alliance America reminding you that Animals Will Never Have Justice Until Animals Have Rights. Kay Riviello
[email protected]
(845) 856 7366 Animal Rights Including Dogs & Cats, Massive Protest, Legal Action and Political Advocacy
