Hard-earned joy

There’s good news – no, “unbelievably exciting news” -- on the fur front. It comes from Julie O’Connor, a tireless animal advocate who heads up Caring Activists Against Fur (CAAF), often mentioned in this blog.

Julie’s organization, sometimes joining others that also protest against fur garments and trim, the stores selling fur and the fur industry in general, regularly demonstrates in New York City and north Jersey. The last demo for this “fur season” was in March at Lord & Taylor, Fifth Ave.

Now, in a message to those involved with CAAF activities, Julie has revealed the back story on that demo and Lord & Taylor.

Shortly before the March event, Julie heard that L & T had closed down its fur salon, although it was still selling fur accessories like rabbit fur earmuffs online. She went ahead with the protest and contacted PETA, suggesting they work with L & T to go fur-free entirely.

Now, Julie reports, that has happened! PETA has advised Julie that L & T is fur free!

Julie believes that “the continuous, targeted pressure is what made this victory possible.” She would like to think “one of the executives saw one of our signs and received some of our literature & it planted the seeds of change.”

She’s confident that “We’re on the verge of something BIG – first, JC Penney [March ‘09] and now L & T.” She adds, “We CAN and DO make a difference! Again, this proves the fight is out on the street. Now let’s keep the victory going for other sentient beings!”
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Seduced designers buy into fur

Just when we thought the protests might be making a dent and fur clothes-wearers were starting to get it -- the "it" being the utter barbarity behind humans wearing animals' fur -- in comes the report that fur is back, big time.

"Fashion feels fur's warm embrace," said the New York Times on March 10. The fashion shows for next fall's designer clothes were over and, according to the Times, for the first time in more than two decades, more designers are using fur than not.

This "did not just happen," the report went on. It was the result of a marketing campaign -- by furriers. Their targets: clothes designers. Their method: sponsor courses and contests and free trips; provide free furs; generally make it easy for designers to use fur. It worked.

Also mentioned in the Times' coverage: several of the (susceptible) "designers are too young to remember the vicious battles over fur in the 1980s and '90s. . ." And -- hard to believe -- "Others said they felt confident using fur after examining the chain of production and finding it humane."

That does it. The so-called "chain of production" involves murdering animals for their skins, period. How, when and where is that ever "humane"?

Picture this: one designer's showroom features "a big cobalt blue fox coat -- so big it could stand up on its own" -- priced at $6,750.

What was the cost to the foxes who literally died for that coat? How many fewer foxes and other fur-bearing animals are alive today, enjoying the freedom they deserve, all because furriers are greedy, murdering manipulators and greedy, gullible clothes designers scrupulously avoid knowing too much? ("Ignorance of the [moral] law is no defense.")
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/fashion/11FUR.html?emc=eta1

NOTE: CAAF (Concerned Activists Against Fur) sponsors an anti-fur demo on Sunday, March 21, 1-3 pm at Lord & Taylor, Fifth Avenue, NYC. Plan to be there! Join other activists on the 39th St. side of the store.

"Fur-free Friday"

With just about a month to go till Thanksgiving, it’s time to lock up the day after the holiday for a major good deed. Although it’s also been known as “Black Friday” (for the holiday shopping, the related traffic and the hoped-for move from red to black ink in ledgers), animal advocates have turned this day into “Fur-free Friday.”

Winter will bring with it the inevitable fur coats, jackets, boots, hats, scarves – what else? -- so it’s time to remind fur consumers of how that fur was “harvested”: what animals endure, what kinds of deaths they suffer, so humans can wear their skins.

One admirable group of fighters for a fur-free world is ”Caring Activists Against Fur,” or CAAF. Based in North Jersey, founded and energized by a school teacher and a nurse, visible all over Manhattan and North Jersey on weekends and holidays, this organization makes no bones about the horrors of the fur trade and the vanity and selfishness of people who wear fur.

They demonstrate outside major NYC-area stores and furriers, sometimes with bullhorn and videos and always with leaflets to distribute and chants to get the attention of passers-by (often wearing fur).

And it’s often cold, very cold, during these demonstrations. They call for much more discomfort than writing a check or tooting a car horn while driving by. Standing in one place for a couple hours at a time during winter months is no picnic.

Just think, though: it may win the attention of some fur wearers and buyers. They may then think about how that raccoon collar moved from the animal to the neckline of their coats; how their sheepskin books meant that sheep too had to die; how even their mink earmuffs necessitated death – often grisly.

But grisly or anesthetized, what’s the diff? Why should animals die so humans – with countless other ways to keep warm in winter – can wear their skins? Supposedly, we’re millennia away from cave people days; we’re enlightened. There’s no excuse for today’s knowledgeable humans, who ought to know where those skins came from, as well as myriad alternatives to them.

Check out CAAF. Then (in your cloth coat and man-made shoes) join them!

http://www.caafgroup.com/index.html
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